


Juno Steel Gets One Year Older (This is A Recurring Occasion)

by Myzic



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Fluff, Happy birthday Juno Steel, Not Beta Read, Other, didnt want sarah steel in this so she isnt there, i have to emphasize this one this time, its late im tired merry christmas, kind of rushed sorry, no sads in this only happy times, reread it once, we die like hyperion mayors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:40:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28309872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myzic/pseuds/Myzic
Summary: Juno Steel's had a lot of birthdays by now, but at least he's had people he loves to celebrate them with.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 16
Kudos: 59





	Juno Steel Gets One Year Older (This is A Recurring Occasion)

**Author's Note:**

> … I realized Juno and Ben’s birthday was today, Today. So if this seemed unedited. It was. Very sorry about that.
> 
> It’s still Juno’s birthday where I live, so… it counts. Enjoy my quick fic that finally broke my streak of pretentious titles.

Their birthday wasn’t necessarily the best day of the year. No, that honour would have to go to Touchdown, or this year, the Truce, but still, the Steel twins’ shared birthday was still something to look forward to.

Juno walked up to the counter at Johanssen’s and slid his comms across the counter to the unimpressed looking cashier who watched him blankly.

“One large strawberry milkshake,” he said and Benzaiten ran up beside him and slid his own comms across the counter.

“Vanilla for me, please,” Benten said, and this was why people liked him more than Juno. His brother smiled winningly and he could see the look on the lady’s face melt a bit. “It’s our birthday, and we have memberships for a free drink on there! Don’t know how to get to them but if you ring them through, maybe…” 

She stared them down for a second before clicking a few buttons on their sides and holding them under the light of her register, glowing a roving red. “Alright, well happy birthday, kids. How old is that now?”

“Eleven. Thanks.” Juno took back his comms from her outstretched hand and put it beside the coupons in his shirt pocket. Benten did the same and they both stood at the end of the counter, where their drinks would be. The smell of greasy food hung heavy and salty in the air, a thin film that clung to their clothes and skin. Juno inhaled deeply and made sure to savour it while he could. They probably wouldn’t be back until next year. 

“Where to next?” Benten asked once they were outside like Juno had a better sense of direction for this area than he did. They’d prepared for this the day before at school, using the fancier computers with Sasha’s help to look up all the businesses on their large collection of coupons, and he had arrows drawn on his wrists to help him remember which way to go next.

Juno pulled back the cuff of his sleeve with a pinky extended from the hand holding his drink to reveal a row of smudged arrows drawn in water-proof purple marker. “Right. This way. Got a coupon for the deep-fried bacon-flavoured special at Waffle Warriors. It’s two blocks from here. You once told me ‘green’s a terrible colour theme for a fast-food place’ when we passed it?”

Benzaiten snapped his fingers. “I remember that,” he responded in that tone of voice people made when they pretended to know what they were talking about so the conversation would end. It was also the same voice Juno made whenever Mr. Lobowski called on his unraised hand in Info-Tech.

They came out of the building with deep-fried sandwich waffles, bacon cooked into the middle and Juno made a face when he bit into his. It crunched when he first bit into it and the waffle slices were so big he had to stretch his mouth to fit his mouth around it, and the bacon made the rest of it sag with grease. “This is disgusting.”

“Ithff not bab,” Benten offered, mouth full of the sandwich that would better pass as an abomination. He swallowed and reached out a hand for the rest of it. “I’ll take it if you don’t want it.”

“You’re disgusting too.” But Juno handed it over and shivered as the warm shell of the waffle stopped keeping his fingers warm. He wiped his hands on his jacket and said, “Pass the rest of your shake.”

They ended up with pretzels, pizza, two slushies, and french fries. They walked into one of those convenience stores for the slushies and Juno had to make an effort not to grin when the tight-bunned cashier stared them down with suspicious eyes. They had been there before of course, but the last time Juno had stepped foot inside he’d left with a couple of bags of gummies, three bags of chips which were all that he could fit under his coat, (a handful of medicine from the aisle with all those little bottles because he wasn’t sure which one they needed), and one pack of each flavour of gum. 

So, the cashier made eyes at him over the cracked glass counter filled with vibrant lotto tickets no one in Oldtown had a chance at winning, and neither he nor Benzaiten squirmed because it wasn’t like they could prove anything. He pushed his drink up, a mushy pile of brown liquid from all the different flavours he’d poured in.

They shivered in the winter air outside, Benzaiten sticking his tongue out in an unnatural and neon cyan that almost matched their slowly freezing fingertips if not for the vibrancy and shade. Juno nearly choked on his pretzel-pancake-pizza monstrosity as he shoved it in his mouth all at once, and everything they couldn’t eat they shoved into the fridge when they got home.

Ma wasn’t there when they arrived, and Juno pretended the relieved slump of his shoulders was from the wave of warm air that greeted them when they stepped into the apartment. He shucked off his shoes instead of bothering to untie them with fumbling fingers and grabbed a bean-pillow from the cupboards, stuffing it into the microwave. When it beeped and finished heating up, he curled his fingers into it for a moment before handing it off to Benten when he was done putting away their haul of birthday fast food, and he immediately held it to his face.

They settled in to watch a movie, Juno eyeing his comms and not wanting to accidentally delete anything. “Has ‘Spot: The Tail of Thirty-Two Dogs and No Deaths’ finished downloading yet?” Ben whined, slung over the couch, though Juno couldn’t imagine what that felt like with his own stomach, which already felt queasy with all the food he’d eaten. “You remembered to start loading it, right?”

“Ye _ ah _ , but if you wanna check so bad, do it yourself.” Juno tossed his comms and Ben grabbed it out of the air above him, bringing his arms up to grab it in a clap. “Careful.” He scolded, wincing at the rough treatment.

Benten poked at it with hesitant fingers and the screen lit up, its display flickering on with more dogs than the device should have been able to fit. “Got it!” He swung forward and set it down on the coffee table. “Gonna pop some popcorn, Super Steel?”

“It’s my birthday too,” he complained but grabbed a bag anyway. “Can’t it be my gift for you not to call me that?”

“Whatever. Hurry up or I’ll start it without you.”

They rolled the movie, and it was Benzaiten’s pick— a movie about trailblazing pioneer dogs, he  _ would— _ so Juno didn’t really pay much attention because the plot was overly sappy and he didn’t actually care that much about the obvious catering to pet-lovers. 

Six Twenty-Seven rolled around, and Juno whooped right as Bido on-screen stared up at the stars longingly, jostling Benzaiten at his side who jumped before turning to Juno, looking at the clock and groaning in realization. 

“Eleven years old!” Juno raised his arms. “Got one more year until I can learn to drive.”

“We already know how to drive,” Benzaiten moaned, more in bored anticipation of what was to come next and Juno didn’t disappoint.

“Yeah, but I’m a whole year older than you now.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“When I was your age—” Juno ignored Benzaiten but was still cut off by an overdramatic groan. He continued, undeterred. “When I. Was. Your. Age. I remember watching this really bad movie, and it was about the ownership of too many dogs to possibly be legal.”

“I remember,” Benten said forcefully. “I was there for that, and there’s no such thing as ‘too many dogs.’”

“Listen to your elders. That’s too many dogs to pay enough attention to, the owner could be sued for neglect.” He retorted, “And when I was eleven, like you, I spent way too much time on bad television when there was all that good television that already existed.” 

Benten paused the movie with a click and dropped his face into his hands as Juno recounted exactly what he’d been doing the seventeen minutes prior to his time of birth. Then, the clock ticked 6:40, and he eagerly stuffed a pillow into Juno’s face.

“Shut up. Shut up!” He laughed, “I’m eleven now too, so can we please keep watching the movie?” Juno smacked Benten right back in the face with the pillow, smiling at the satisfying  _ thwap _ it made on contact.

“Fine.”

The rest of the movie passed with little more interruption, and after watching Juno’s pick (The Moon Man’s Sun Bride), they washed the few dishes made by their batches of popcorn and climbed into bed. Juno stared up at the ceiling, hands crossed over his stomach as he turned, rustling the sheets, and wondering if he should give Benzaiten his gift. 

He’d spent… a fair bit of time on it, maybe not enough given that he wasn’t entirely happy with how it’d turned out, but maybe he would still like it. Juno wasn’t sure if he could laugh it off passably if he didn’t.

“Hey, Juno?”

“Yeah?” He leaned over the railing of their bunk. “What is it?”

“Get down here, I’ve got something for you.”

“You couldn’t have given it to me before I climbed up the ladder?” He grumbled but started to climb down. Juno looked at the corner of his bed and quickly snatched the wooden wand from its spot nestled between his sheets and started to climb down.

“Here,” and he handed Juno a messily wrapped, oddly shaped gift. It felt strange in his hands and he tore away the wrapping to find a Y-shaped piece of wood with a long, curved bit of rubber and a small pouch for ammo. “Your aim is really good, and I thought if you really wanted to get better then we could probably have some fun with this.”

It wasn’t made of anything special, the pouch was thin and felt frail, but he bet he could hurl a few good stones with it, and Juno liked the feel of it in his hands. He tucked it into his pajama pants pocket and grabbed Ben’s gift.

“Thanks, Benten. This is really cool, I’m going to break so many windows with it. I… made this for you.” Juno held it out, and Benten took it carefully into his hands. “I don’t know if you even use these, but I remembered that one show we went to with the dancers that waved those ribbons and we both thought they looked pretty cool, so—”

“Awesome,” Benzaiten breathed in awe. It wasn’t even that nice. He’d slimmed down the stick from an old broom handle with an old butter knife and it was still a little too thick, and the ribbon wasn’t that nice, but Juno had seen it in the window of a crafts store and thought it was perfect. 

But Benzaiten still looked at it like it was amazing, and then his eyes were on Juno and he looked at him like he was amazing too, like he wasn’t holding some piece of crap Juno had cobbled together instead of buying one of the really nice fancy ones. “This is so cool, and you made it? Juno, holy crap this is… wow, this is really thoughtful, and I love it.”

The urge to deny his compliments rose in his throat, and Juno swallowed it all down. “Happy birthday,” he said instead, fingers still loosely curled around his own gift, and Benten rose from his bed to wrap his arms around him. Juno let them stay there a couple of seconds longer than he would have normally. It was his birthday after all.

“Happy birthday.”

* * *

As far as he saw it, birthdays, for him at the very least, weren't any different from the other 365 days in the year. Rita did not share his opinion on this. 

Juno had grunted and done his best to relax through his earlier massage as the poor masseuse pushed and prodded at his muscles, bearing down on different spots over his back, legs, and that one spot between his shoulder blades he hadn’t realized was so tightly wound. Now, sprawled in a bathtub full of rose petals and hot water that felt godlike after the freezing winter air, he stretched and was surprised to find he didn’t tingle and ache in pain all over. He felt good, surprisingly enough.

Rita watched him from her own bath grinning. “Told ya you’d like it, Mistah Steel.” She remarked. “All that time bent over your desk. You don’t take care of yourself nearly as well as you should!”

“Could do just as well with someone stepping over my unconscious body,” he replied, unwilling to admit she was right about this whole spa thing. “And garbage bins can be good for your joints if you land in ‘em right.”

She frowned a little in distress and Juno sighed, letting himself admit that he might be having… a good time. Probably a little soon to be making those jokes with the shiny new shoulder scar he’d gotten as of last week. 

“But… thanks, Rita. I’m having a lot more fun,” he admitted, “than I thought I would. I kinda thought this was an excuse for you to enjoy yourself using me as an excuse.”

“I don’t see nothing wrong with doin’ both. And you like it, right?” Rita forged on, not waiting for his answer. “A lady can treat herself same time as her boss, and I think we both deserve it.”

“Huh,” Juno said, and then thought of his masseuse, and Rita’s. Rita’s cute masseuse who’d winked and greeted her with questions about ‘the usual treatment.’ “So this isn’t about,” He thought hard about the nametags he’d seen pinned to their mint green shirts, “Amara? The very pretty massage lady who works here and knows you on sight?”

“Mistah Steel,” Rita sat up in her bathtub and hissed at him, “Shush! We don’t know where they are right now, she could be waiting right outside that door an’ listening in! I’m playing the long game, I’ve got some wooing to do before moving on to Step Eighteen ‘she finds out the prettiest hacker in the world likes her.’”

“She seemed happy to see you,” Juno shrugged, entertained by the drama more than the warm water around him. He had a bathtub in his apartment, of course, it was just that he didn’t really use it. There were always better things to do than waste an hour in water that grew increasingly dirty the longer he soaked in it, especially when Juno could just take a five-minute shower. 

“Aww, that’s nice of you to say, boss.” There was a pause and a few feeble splashes. Juno waited. “Would you say it was more of a ‘polite customer service’ look, or an ‘I’m completely in love with the gorgeous lady I’m about to massage?’”

“Happy medium,” he grinned. “How about ‘I don’t meet a lot of people and this lady who keeps coming in is kind of cute?’”

“I’ll take it,” she shook her fist victoriously and Juno lifted his head from the rim to see her peering over the rim of her tub at him. He peeled a slice of cucumber off the top of the tray-table beside him and flicked it over precisely, so it would land in the tub and splash her.

Rita squawked amusingly, and a spatter of warm water splashed him in the face. A chunk of nearly-dried facial dropped from his cheek and plopped in the water and Juno grimaced. “Ew. Is that what’s on my face right now?” he wondered aloud.

“Boss?”

He sunk back into the tub, careful to make sure no more of the mask sloughed off his face and into the water. “Yeah, Rita?”

“Didja ever think you would end up here? Like I always knew I was gonna be awesome, and I really love being your secretary! But whatta ‘bout you? What’d little Mistah Steel think he was gonna be?” 

Juno thought about it for a second. “Dead.” 

“Boss!” She protested. “I’m talking about dreams for the future. Come! On!”

Juno wasn’t wrong. The mortality rate wasn’t the best in Oldtown, higher than every other part of Hyperion, but she’d probably known that too. He still scrambled for an answer, taken aback by her question.

“Police.” He said plainly. “Or a superhero when I was in single digits. For a while there, maybe a social worker, but I don’t have the temperament for it.” Juno hadn’t ended up where he thought he would at all, and he wasn’t sure if that made him a disappointment to his younger self or not. Maybe, or probably, if he was in a worse mood, but right now? Relaxed for the first time in months, his best (only) friend in a good mood, neither of them maimed or dead, Juno thought he was in the right place. Hyperion needed him where he was to roll back his sleeves and work out every bit of grime and muck it had filling the streets.

“Well, I think you’re real good as a PI! You help a lot of people in Hyperion, people who don’t have nowhere to go.” She said.

“ _ We _ help a lot of people.” He corrected and knew it was the right thing to say from how her face lit up at his words.

“And we’re a whole lot better at it than the HCPD,” Rita replied cheerfully. “I’m real happy workin’ with you boss! Nowhere else I’d wanna work, ‘cept for maybe ‘The Rita and Steel Detective Agency.’”

He snorted. “Not happening.” As stained and tarnished as Hyperion was, it was… refreshing almost for someone like Rita to exist within it. “There are worse places to be,” Juno agreed.

* * *

When Nureyev stood in his doorway and asked if he’d be willing to go out for supper, Juno was suspicious. Suspicious because this was exactly the kind of thing people with poor planning and a love of surprises did when they wanted to throw you a party you didn’t want.

But Juno still put on a nice navy blouse along with a blazer, dress pants, and a pair of silver earrings, did his makeup and kept watching Nureyev (hard to keep his eyes off him in that v-neck shirt and woolen red peacoat) as he offered his arm on their way to the restaurant.

The restaurant they went to— the River’s Run— is charming and nothing like the upscale fancily-furnished environment he’d been anticipating. There was dark wooden flooring and long pillars of wood intersecting the room, tables made of polished cedar with a slightly unnatural grain that let him know they were simwood.

“This place is nice,” Juno mused. “Was kind of expecting something overboard, but you know? This isn’t too bad."

“Oh? Well, I’m glad I got this part of tonight right, then.”

Ding ding ding, and Nureyev wound him right around back to being suspicious again. “‘This part?’ Honey, this is fine. We don’t have to do anything special tonight.” He said, attempting to derail the rest of the night’s plans.

“Certainly, if you’d like a quiet evening in then we could do that as soon as we’re back aboard the ship.” The gentle clink of cutlery stopped for a moment as Nureyev spoke. 

His hesitation wasn’t disappointed, Nureyev was too skilled for that, but Juno felt the brief dismissal of a meticulously planned evening like it was a physical decision. 

He set his jaw and made a decision. “But if you have something planned already,” Juno shrugged. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to check it out.” 

“Are you certain you’re up for it, Juno? This is your day, after all, I don’t want to marr it with—”

“As long as your plans include getting to spend some time with you, there’s no way you could’ve messed it up,” Juno interrupted. “So, what’s on the schedule?”

Nureyev pulled an actual slip of paper from his coat sleeve and unfolded it, before looking back up at Juno. Right. A schedule. But, Juno had literally asked for it, so.

“What—” The corners of his mouth turned up and Nureyev gave him a curious look of wonderment. “You’re screwing with me.” He said, and Nureyev laughed a quiet amused song, which felt like the best gift he could have received.

“Not at all, dear.”

“Well, I’m done eating, so if you’re done having fun at my expense,” Juno raised his eyebrows at Nureyev’s plate, and he delicately took up his knife and fork again. “We can get started on your master plan.”

“Whatever the lady requests,” He agreed.

The streets were colder than the inside of the restaurant, the roads slick with ice in a way that just didn’t happen in Hyperion because of the acid rain and overall temperature. As he slipped on a particularly deadly patch of sheer, shining death Juno swore violently, and instantly decided he hated it. 

He gripped onto Nureyev's arm who pulled his weight sideways to balance Juno and bring him back to his feet. “Fuck,  _ fuck, shit _ . Does every place that isn’t Mars have to deal with naturally occurring death traps a quarter of the year?” he demanded.

“Only the colder ones, dear. On Khio the children grow up learning to skate to school every morning, but Mars and Martians aren’t quite so lucky.” Nureyev informed him, perfectly balanced, long legs stretching and planting themselves gracefully over the glossy road.

Eventually, the ground began to shine with dull lights in various different colours, and Juno stared at the multicoloured, neon haze they made on the slick ground. There was a big gate, strung with lights of various different colours, people wrapped up in every manner of furry clothing, and mist rose from the stalls in heavy clouds above the market, twinkling white lights hanging above the fair.

Juno stared. “What are they… celebrating?” The first thought that popped into his mind was stupid and he quietly hammered it down into the recesses of his mind. 

“Oh, well a lot of immigrants from the Terran Shift event live here. They brought this local holiday with them, and now a lot of the planet celebrates with them. Ever heard of Christmas?”

Juno wrinkled his nose, scouring the age-old memories of his school years when this stuff was relevant for tests. “That one where people hired elderly men to break into their homes and exchange items? Sure.” He replied.

“That,” Nureyev stretched out the word, testing it, “is one such adaptation of it, certainly. Better than some I’ve heard, I suppose. The celebration itself has some good food.” 

They wandered the market, Juno briefly stepping aside to grab some Christmas-appropriate drinks. Cold, for some unknowable reason, he took one sip and

God, that was disgusting. It was too sweet with a thick, slimy layer over his tongue, it tasted like medicine and at the same time like he’d swallowed a cup full of toothpaste. “Babe, do you want to try this—” 

Juno turned to see Nureyev, who hadn’t waited in line with him, instead electing to wander further down the market holding a large bouquet of roses, a deep, lush red. They were the wrong shade for nostalgia, too dark, not saturated enough, but the scent, the light sweet air they exuded and filled his office for a week after they died was the exact same. He realized he was leaning forward, inhaling deeply with his eyes closed, and straightened quickly.

“Happy birthday, Juno.” Nureyev looked so pleased with himself, happy with his own dashing plan. Then, his expression smoothened and he looked at the flowers in his hand. “Didn’t quite manage to find dahlias this year, love.”

“Subtle,” Juno snorted, but took them anyway, trading hands with Nureyev so he was holding the eggnog. “I can live without the dahlias in exchange for you, I guess,” he said and pulled Nureyev down for a kiss. For a second he felt satisfied with the dizzily happy look on his partner’s face, and then Nureyev lightly smacked his lips together in thought.

“Did you put on some chapstick? You taste divine.” Juno made a disgusted face and held out his own cup of the creamy liquid. 

“Great, you can have my cup too. You’ll probably like it.” He looked at the roses and then kissed Nureyev again who laughed, surprised when it broke.

“And what did I do to deserve that for?” He asked, perfect eyebrows raised in delight as his mouth split into a sharpened smile. “Just so that I might do it again.”

“Realized I didn’t get to thank you for the flowers last year,” Juno explained. “Had some making up to do.”

Last year, when he’d had the office and the tenure, when he accepted every thought his mind turned on him. When Juno didn’t have Nureyev or the Carte Blanche, and he threw himself at every problem and case like it was forgiveness and repentance while refusing to believe he deserved either. And guilt still hung heavy around him from time to time, but now at least, he could rebuff it, because Juno Steel deserved nice things. He did.

So, he let himself walk through the marketplace, Nureyev at his arm, and for once he didn’t carry the memory of Benzaiten Steel like a burden. He would have loved it here, Juno thought, with the gorgeous dream-like lights twinkling as if in celebration of them personally, and he quietly resolved to maybe tell Nureyev more about him later. Not much, just how he drifted through the air when he danced, the bunk beds they would often share, his steadfast belief in a brother who didn’t think he deserved it.

Their birthday was to celebrate both of them after all, and even if Juno was the only one to remember him, Benten should live on in more ways than the bottom of a bottle.

They walked through the market a bit more before he remembered his earlier thoughts about surprises and the kind of people who liked them. That, and the way Rita tried to throw him a big bash last year… 

“The others aren’t getting anything ready on the ship while we stroll through the market, are they?” For a second a look of nervousness crossed his partner’s face and Juno could have groaned at the look before a helpless grin broke through it.

“No, dear. Rita told us you might not be up to it, though you may receive a gift or two. I don’t know what the others have planned,” Nureyev reassured. His shoulders loosened and then he shivered, a chill creeping down the neck of his thick jacket. 

“Are you good to go, then?” Juno curled inward slightly, burying his right hand in Nureyev’s blessedly warm coat pocket, and jamming the other into his own. “Head back to the ship? I’m freezing.”

“Of course. You’re about as resilient to the cold as a newborn, Juno.” He leaned against Juno who couldn’t help but burrow slightly into Nureyev’s arms around him, sighing at the heat. “Let’s get back and I’m sure I can find some way to warm you up.” He took a deep breath. “I think I’ve found my new favourite holiday.”

“I guess Christmas is nice, but—”

“Your birthday,” Nureyev hummed.

“What,” Juno sputtered, “that’s not. A holiday. You can’t just say it’s a holiday.”

“Well, some celebrations celebrate deities like Santa Claws. I’ve just decided to pay piety to Juno Steel, a goddess who deserves all the worship I can offer.” He explained, before sipping the cup of eggnog that held the combined liquids of both their drinks. “What better day to celebrate you than the day you were born, and do not misunderstand me, Juno. Every day I am so so grateful you were born.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how holidays work,” Juno protested weakly as they stepped around the crowd, past the gates of the market and toward the home they’d made of the Carte Blanche, “but… yeah. I’m glad I was born too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, Juno Steel!! The obsession that forced me into writing fic for the first time in half a decade. (And Merry Christmas.)


End file.
